The food processing industry is continually developing new approaches to preparing food products for human consumption. Generally, these approaches attempt to improve the overall consistency and quality of food products delivered to the consumer. In particular, food processors adopt various methods and systems to improve the flavor, shelf life, appearance, and nutrition of food products.
One approach to processing food products places the food product in a tumbler filled with a saline solution. The ham processing industry, for example, uses a tumbler to dramatically increase the water content of ham, sometimes as much as one hundred percent from its pre-tumbling weight. Another approach utilizes a tumbler partially evacuated and filled with a saline solution for alternately exposing the food products to the saline solution and partial vacuum. The hydration achieved using a vacuum tumbler is typically significantly lower than the hydration achieved when processing hams using a conventional tumbler.
Previous processing systems have experienced some limited success in enhancing the overall quality and consistency of food products. These previous approaches, however, have not adequately identified and extracted the major components, leading to low quality food products and bacterial contamination.